A Year in Van Nuys

Rating:
Summary: Solidly Entertaining
Review: This is a good - not great - book that generally entertains, but goes too far in an effort to keep the reader amused and interested. The author writes at a higher intelligence level than your typical best selling author does. The downside is that she knows it, and it effects her work. More importantly, however, is the prevalence of eye bag references that nearly made me throw this book in the trash, something I have never done in my life. Six weeks after having finished the book, I sit here editing this review with one prevailing thought in my head, the less-than-enjoyable eye bag references.

The book is presumably about a year in the life of the author. While I don't know how much resonance there is between her real life and what we read on the pages, you can tell there is some. There are too many passionate outbursts for all of this to be fiction. After all, what writer doesn't reveal some of their soul in the words they create? This is what makes it so real and easy to read. As someone once said somewhere, write what you know. But then, what if you know nothing? I digress.

The author clearly knows more than nothing and for the most part, the contents of what she does know are enjoyable to read. Some of the events in the book are resonant with things I've experienced in my own life, despite the fact that I'm a man. I'll go ahead and say the eye bags are *not* one of those things. Still, the struggle to be an author and her ultimate decision in that endeavor are thoughts close to many I have had before. Her final decision, entirely contrary to the fact she authored a book, is something I've also come to adopt. Maybe it this freedom has led her to this work? Again, I digress.

It's a refreshing book, light yet intelligent to a point. It's a quick and enjoyable read. You could certainly do a lot worse. What's more, it has diagrams for those slow on the uptake. All in all, it's generally entertaining and contains real-life insights that can be applied to life and used to learn a little about yourself. Well worth the time spent reading it.

Rating:
Summary: If you are a man, don't buy this book
Review: This is a story of a whining, aging neurotic woman. She is in need of a full time therapist and her stories of her fading look is monotonous and unfunny.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly funny
Review: This wonderful book made me laugh out loud so many times that other people in the room began to eye me strangely. Honest, engaging and so winningly written that I read the entire book in one big delicious gulp.

Rating:
Summary: Run out and buy all her books
Review: What other compliments can I pay than saying that I ran out and bought every single one of her last books. She is absolutely the most insightfully funny writer alive. Superb book that deserves six stars! Looking forward to reading more books by her. (Go Sandra.)

Rating:
Summary: Kvetch, Kvetch, kvetch...
Review: You know, I just couldn't get into this book. It reminded me a little of the cartoon, Cathy, and of Briget Jones's Diary (book, not movie): I feel as though someone needs to smack all these woman upside the head and tell them, "Get a life!"
I bought the book expecting to love it. I got about a third of the way through, and it just wasn't really going anywhere, so I said to myself, I'm over it.
It felt as though she was just trying too hard to be funny.
So I sold my copy on Amazon.[com.]